


Chapstick

by acornandroid



Series: Requests [11]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), College, College AU, Getting Together, M/M, Neighbors, Small crisis, The boys are idiots, They remember each other, all the Losers went to the same college, dorm neighbors, eddie works for the student store, i had to ask outloud whether college was spelled college or collage, med student Eddie, theater student Richie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:34:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22567894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acornandroid/pseuds/acornandroid
Summary: Rooming with Richie would have been a nightmare, so Eddie had decided to share a dorm room with Bill instead. That was supposed to solve all his Richie related problems.Things never really worked out how Eddie supposed. Not when Richie won't leave him alone and Eddie finds that he doesn't quite mind that.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: Requests [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1089456
Comments: 8
Kudos: 131





	Chapstick

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a request for @boyegcs on Twitter! Thanks so much!!!

To Eddie Kaspbrak, college was a gift.

With the support of his friends behind him he had stood his ground and decided to live on campus against his mother’s wishes. He had moved a state away from her puppet strings and got a part time job to help support himself in case she decided to pull out another manipulative tactic.

Some of them remained, unfortunately, tangled and connected to his limbs in the bone crushing habit of calling her every night at six on the dot for a long conversation about when he was coming home- or what she could do to keep him. It made Eddie feel sick- but it also gave him the gut-wrenching sense of security that he hated about himself. A small part of him to please her, a small part of him that just couldn’t let her go.

One of the topics she clung to relentlessly was the frightening determination to get Eddie to change majors.

Though that was where an unstoppable force met with a steadfast immoveable object.

Eddie _liked_ nursing. He liked _helping_ people and knowing what to do to help himself and those around him in a sticky situation. It was a profession built for his anxiety and constant fretting- cranked to a twenty on a ten-digit scale at all moments of the day. It took a lot of his focus too and kept him going with the desire to keep good grades and a decent standing.

Also, to shut his mother up with all this ‘men aren’t nurses’ nonsense.

He could be whatever he wanted to be.

Another topic was the coming home for the holidays—apparently colleges weren’t appropriate to stay in during breaks.

Eddie didn’t care. He liked staying here- Richie always stayed here, and so did Stan, which worked out since they were rooming. Beverly stayed too. Bill, Mike, and Ben were the only ones to go home during any holiday that wasn’t Christmas. Which, considering Bill was sharing the small dorm with Eddie, meant he got the whole place to himself.

Eddie wrinkled his nose a little and reordered his flashcards on his dorm room bed. Bill, his roommate and one of his best friends, was out for the evening, even though they were out late last night. The Losers Club all drinking and laughing in Mike and Ben’s dorm room. There had been one too many drinks involved- and Eddie, well, he maybe had things happen that he sort of wished hadn’t now in the light of day.

Things that made his stomach and lungs constrict in a familiar way. Shortness of breath and the sudden quick heartbeat when he could remember hazy and tipsy pressure of his body tucked against another.

Long fingers playing with his hair and broad shoulders beneath his hands.

He had been so scared—all their friends were there, and they hadn’t said a word.

The t-shirt fabric had been soft and worn to the touch. He always wore those old, nearly vintage in appearance secondhand shirts. Eddie liked them. They always smelled like him, and last night he had been so close that he had nearly drowned in his scent. He had leaned down and brushed his lips against Eddie’s forehead, creased and wrinkled against his twenty-two-year-old skin in a way beyond his years.

He had told Eddie to stop worrying so much, both of them one too many drinks in to really think straight at all.

Ha. _Straight_.

Him and—

There was a loud bang of a sound from the wall beside his bed, loud enough for Eddie to hear through his headphones and jump nearly out of his skin. His flashcards scattered across the bed and onto the floor, and Eddie threw up his hands before dropping them down into his lap. With a scowl marring his face, he ripped off his headphones and slammed his palm flat against the wall.

In a split second, music was playing loud enough to vibrate the entire room.

“Richie--!” Eddie banged on the wall again, then made a fist and started hammering on it. “Richie! Shut the fuck up, you _asshole_ \--! You’re supposed to be hungover!” 

Yes, a small part of Eddie was thankful he was rooming with Bill and not Richie, but somehow, being next to Richie was much worse.

It was like Richie was there and he wasn’t. Richie was a spit balls length away through thin dry wall. The barrier was welcomed though, considering how things were going.

Considering the crisis last night that had bled over into the next day.

For all the annoyance Eddie found in Richie’s simple existence there was also something more. A pinprick of an idea that poked its way into Eddie’s brain acupuncture style at the start of eighth grade and had hung around ever since. The pin rotating and burrowing deeper- turning a tiny indent into a gaping hole of problems and mess.

The pinprick of the idea that Eddie wasn’t exactly _straight_ , per say, and that Richie Tozier wasn’t exactly _bad looking_.

In fact, he had irritatingly grown into his looks.

The bastard.

He had grown into his looks and his glasses. All he needed nowadays was a bit of Chapstick for his lips that Eddie couldn’t stop staring at. His shoulders broadened and his voice had deepened along with Eddie’s confusion. Confusion shaped in dreams about his best friend that made it awkward at school the next morning for reasons he could never admit why.

Dreams that should have stopped but continued into college.

Those broad shoulders beneath his hands—alcohol on both their breaths--

\--

The student store was usually fairly quiet on the days he worked. Save for days when touring groups would come through and sweatshirts would be bought up, or around finals and midterms. 

Not today though. Today was far from quiet- it was actually completely dead. 

It gave Eddie the chance to work on his homework and actually get paid for it. He had already restocked everything and worked his way through his cleaning list so why not. All he had to do was pause every now and again when someone ducked in to buy snacks or a supply they were missing- or the stray scantron or two. 

The bell at the door chimed, but Eddie decided to finish off the current sentence he was typing before he looked up- which was his first mistake.

“Wow- you’re telling me you can get _paid_ to do your homework here?”

Eddie let out a long sigh, glancing up over his laptop screen and staring at Richie who had just wandered into the store in his ugly ass Hawaiian shirt covered in blue tigers and faded Atari shirt.

“I told you that you weren’t allowed in here unless you buy something.” Eddie said, staring him down.

“I am buying something!” Richie protested, already at the counter.

“It’d better be Chapstick. I can see how cracked your lips are from here.”

“You stare at my lips, spaghetti?”

_All the time_. Eddie swallowed the remark down and watched Richie fumble around at the counter for a last minute purchase instead.

He snatched up an eraser quickly and pushed it across towards Eddie, the judgmental expression folding neatly onto the med student’s face.

“I thought you had class right now.”

“I do.”

“Then you should be in class and not bugging me.”

“I’m not bugging you! I needed an eraser!”

“You bought an eraser yesterday.”

“Yeah! And I already fucking lost it, so I need another one.”

Eddie eyed him, then calmly shut his laptop and reached to ring up the single stupid eraser for stupid Richie Tozier. He must have been making a face while he did it, the tightness of his forehead as it creased and the slight hesitation in Richie’s voice as he spoke again was enough evidence to that fact.

“…What’s with you, Eds?” Richie asked finally, sliding the dollar across the table.

“Don’t call me that.”

“Seriously. What the fuck is your deal.”

Eddie pushed the cash inside, grabbed the change, and slid it back across the counter—mainly to avoid touching Richie’s hand. Just the thought of it sent a thrill down his spine that scared him.

“You’re sacrificing your grades in order to annoy the shit out of me.” He sat back down after Richie shoved the eraser in his pocket, trying to go back to his homework.

“This isn’t about my fucking grades. Is it?”

Eddie wrinkled his nose- because Richie did very much have his number in that moment. Of course, it wasn’t about Richie’s class, or his grades. Richie always got good grades no matter what- for as much of an idiot that he was he was smart as all hell.

He was typing on his computer, but none of the sentences were making sense. After a moment he started backspacing aggressively, sitting back and letting out a huff of a breath.

“Okay- no, Richie. It’s not about your fucking grades. It’s about—”

“About what?”

“Would you shut the fuck up and let me tell you? Actually- no I’m working. Get out.”

“Fuck you, Eds. Stop being such a bitch about all of this and just fucking tell me—”

“It’s about—”

“About what?”

“Dude! Shut the _fuck_ up!” Eddie slammed his laptop closed, his voice hitting a louder volume than he expected. He felt a small twinge of guilt for the way Richie stepped back. He honestly hadn’t meant to shout like that, or to react the way he did.

But he felt cornered—his heart was hammering and his lungs constricting. Eddie’s hand shook with the need to grab the inhaler he was trying to live without. The doctors he had been to on his own said he didn’t need it—his therapist said it was psychosomatic. He didn’t need it.

He was just panicking.

Richie was making him panic more and more these days.

“Sorry—I—” Eddie drew in a slow breath as he fought against his brain shutting down. Times when he would work himself up so much that his mind would become an empty echo or a train off the rails, it was always either or and never both. Right now, he could feel the walls closing in, that it was easier to shut it down instead of confronting whatever he was feeling about Richie.

His best friend.

His best friend that probably wasn’t even gay.

Eddie cleared his throat before forging on through the mental fog rolling in slowly over his rational thoughts and drawing him into fight or flight. “…Can we just talk about this later? Like—maybe when I’m not at work?”

He watched Richie’s own insecurity bleed onto his face, despite how he tried to mask it.

‘Can we talk later’ was not a good card to pull on anyone. Eddie hated when it was pulled on him, it always sent him into a spiral.

“It’s not…well, it is about you. It’s not bad though? I think? It’s uh—it’s a thing and I’d feel more comfortable talking about it…in private.”

“What are you gonna fuckin’ propose to me or something? Way to make a guy feel better about ‘we need to talk’.” Richie deadpanned, the flatter tone creating another guilty knot in Eddie’s stomach.

“…Please, Rich. Just later, okay?” Eddie’s hands shook.

He hid them beneath the countertop.

Eddie watched him carefully- the way Richie didn’t joke. The way he pulled in on himself at the unknown—then the way he slapped on a smug smirk and built his façade back up brick by brick.

“Alright fine—but I expect a big ass ring. No less than three karats or I’m saying no—and this better be public too.” Richie jabbed a finger in Eddie’s direction, then turned and headed out the door.

It left Eddie alone in the silence of the store, feeling his own heart trying to hammer its way out of his chest and launch itself into oblivion. This was it then- later tonight his life would be over.

Later tonight he would tell his best friend he was into him and watch him pull away- watch him be unnerved by someone so close to him wanting him in a way that was more than friends. It was a boundary he was going to push and one he was going to die against.

A barricade of broken furniture and hidden desires with Eddie hidden tightly in its nooks and crannies as the bullets flew overhead.

He sighed to himself and caved, grabbing his inhaler and taking a deep breath, annoyed that he just made a musical theater reference to his life.

\--

Anxiety was crawling all over Eddie’s body like ants.

He could feel them- tangible and scrambling up and down his limbs. Their little legs marking insecurities and ‘what if’s all over his person as numerous as the freckles that dotted his skin.

It unsettled him- though he supposed the feeling of the impending doom of ending your best and closest friendship because of messy feeling was going to feel anything but.

He had asked Richie to meet him at his dorm, which wasn’t much of a hassle considering they resided next door to each other. Bill was out with Mike anyways; on whatever sort of not-date-but-totally-a-date they were on.

So at least the end of his world wouldn’t have much of an audience, save for the neighbors on the non-Loser filled dorm side that might overhear shouting.

If it came to that.

Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.

Eddie jolted when there was a knock on the door before Richie simply pushed it right open and stepped in. He got up from where he was seated on his bed so quickly that he very nearly fell but regained his footing at the last second.

“Alright. Spill the fucking beans, Kaspbrak. You’ve kept me worked up all goddamn day and I’ve had it about up to here—” Richie made a chopping motion in the air approximately Eddie’s height on his body, “—With your little shit bullshit-ness.”

Eddie’s heart leapt into his throat, and the crawling sensation across his skin increased tenfold. He ran his hands up and down his arms as if trying the physically push the feeling away—far away. The door closed behind Richie with sound that rang in finality. It echoed in the jarred enclosed space of Eddie’s mind.

Life was far too complicated in college.

It was supposed to be easy.

“I didn’t want to talk about it in the middle of the fucking student store, asshole.” Eddie shot back, his nervousness shortening his already microscopic fuse.

“I don’t even know what the fuck is going on.” Richie shot back, crossing two more steps into the room and getting closer to the shorter man before him.

It seemed to click then. Between Eddie’s small step back and the timing of it all. Richie’s brows furrowed, knit together in a sort of style normally better suited on Eddie’s face above his glasses. The action made them scrunch up on his nose in a way that caused Eddie’s heart to do an odd sort of flipping motion. They moved in the way that made Eddie want to take them off and clean them—especially when he could see the smudges around where Richie had tried to push them up and accidentally touched the lens instead.

Focus, Kaspbrak.

Richie just figured something out.

“This is about last night, isn’t it?” Richie asked, staying rooted where he was as the waters changed and the tide flowed in.

Last night when they had been way too close. Last night through the drunken haze when Eddie brushed his lips gently against Richie’s jawline and he hadn’t pulled away. All of the events he wasn’t sure exactly happened or not—but the weight of Richie’s arms around him had felt real enough.

“Yeah.” Eddie answered, dumbly, while his mind screamed out ten million other things he should be saying in the moment.

They stared at each other for a few moments more- the longest stretch of silence settling between them in years. Normally they were all yelling and screaming—egging each other on in the best and worst ways possible.

Richie and Eddie were opposites—but not in the bad sense.

Opposites in the sense of north and south on a magnet. Two poles that attracted- that drew each other in and stuck together. A bond that stood against mostly anything- one that strengthened and encouraged. One that could only be broken by physically being pulled apart, or too much unbalanced weight on either end.

That was what scared Eddie the most.

He wanted to be a magnet.

He wanted to stick himself to Richie and never let go. The north to his south—the one that held him together, and Eddie to him in turn. He wanted it all- past the friendship and the joking.

Eddie wanted the kissing and the screaming. He wanted the wrestling and the sleeping and the jacket sharing and the cleaning Richie’s glasses and making sure he was okay if he had a cold.

This was why he couldn’t have roomed with Richie—why Bill was the safer choice.

Eddie had wanted it _too_ badly.

“Look, Eds…” Richie was speaking again, and Eddie looked up at him. He wasn’t quite sure when he had wrapped his arms around himself, but he had. Maybe to stop himself from reaching out to Richie in desperation when words failed him. “We were both pretty…fucking wasted. I’m not letting Stanley mix drinks again because that was _insanity_ —”

“I liked it.”

“I don’t know who the fuck told him that much vodka was okay—what.” Richie stopped immediately for once, cut off mid-sentence and staring at Eddie. “Wait. You what? Fucking liked what? I need context here—the drinks? Getting wasted?”

“No.” Eddie took a breath to steel himself. He gathered his small amount of courage and stood a little taller—he lifted his chin. As if he were bracing for the world. “Being close to you.”

“…are you drunk right now, Eds.”

“What? No!”

“You totally are you only get this mushy when you’re drunk—”

“I don’t day drink, asshole!”

“Bullshit! Everyone day drinks this is _college_ —”

“I’m a _med student_ —”

“ _Especially_ med students.”

Eddie scowled and marched forward—because Richie was deflecting. He was being a little bitch and he was deflecting.

Eddie wasn’t even sure if he _was_ gay—and he wasn’t sure if he was referring to himself or Richie either.

What he did know was that he was tired of this. Tired of the dancing and the skirting—of the sitting thigh to thigh when they hung out with friends. Tired of doing small little things for Richie that he wouldn’t do for anyone else and acting like it was nothing. Tired of Richie coming into the student store every single shift to bug him, or magically showing up at the library and sitting with Eddie, oddly quiet, as he studied for midterms or wrote his papers.

He was tired of the note knowing- tired of the unlabeled and unorganized.

Tired of not being able to just _kiss_ Richie and know what would happen.

So, he did.

Kissed him, that is.

Eddie had to stand on his toes- because fuck Richie and his long limbs—but he stood on his toes and leaned in. It was more of an awkward peck that anything. A quick smack to Richie’s lips before Eddie recoiled back to study his reaction.

He took careful stock of Richie’s posture at a safe distance. At his wide eyes and locked body, at the rapid blinking as he tried to reboot his brain back up into working order. After a moment Richie’s eyes flickered down to him, and he looked at Eddie as if he had grown a second head.

“…are you sure you’re not drunk.” Was all he deadpanned, like an idiot.

A perfect, irritating, beautiful, stupid idiot.

“I— _yes_ I’m fucking sure. I don’t even keep alcohol in here—”

“Trust me. I know.”

“—And is that _really_ your first reaction? You would _taste_ any sort of liquor on my breath. It fucking lingers, dude. That shit doesn’t just go away like immediately—or you would taste toothpaste cause I tried to hide it! And— _and_ —I just fucking kissed you—”

“That you did.”

“And you ask me if I’m _drunk_ when I had _work_ and _class_ today? I’m not an irresponsible student, Rich—”

“Of course, you’re not.”

“You’re such a fucking _shithead_ —I shouldn’t have done this I don’t even know if you’re like—if you’re like _into_ me or—”

There was a hand on either one of his shoulders, and suddenly Eddie was pulled in. Richie had leaned down to match his height and had brought his chapped lips against Eddie’s once again.

This time in a _proper_ kiss.

The rant was all but forgotten, left by the wayside as Richie kissed him thoroughly. As Eddie kissed back, stunned but far too into it _not_ to. His arms winding their way around Richie’s body and holding tight. His hands fisted into the back of that hideous Hawaiian shirt and he pressed himself close, following that magnetic pull and slotting against him.

He fit perfectly.

Richie kissed him to hell and back and Eddie followed. He followed the slide of his lips clumsily and the arch of his body, leaning and pulling where Richie was ebbing and flowing. Eddie shuddered at the first brush of his tongue and at the long fingers tracing each and every bump in his spine. He gasped a little when Richie’s hand drifted just a little _too_ low for a first kiss and reached back to pull them up, earning a muffled laugh against his mouth from the taller man.

Eddie pulled back, dazed and flushed and trying to catch his breath. Richie’s nose bumped against his one last time before he straightened back up to his full height but didn’t let go of Eddie just yet.

Palms resting flat against his chest, Eddie stared at him, searching for his eyes and finding the answers he wanted.

Richie _was_ into him.

Go figure.

“…you need Chapstick.” Eddie said, narrowing his eyes just a little.

Richie laughed, leaning down and pressing a kiss to his pouting mouth. “Fuck you, Eds.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you wanna yell at me on Twitter I'm @acornandroid there as well <3


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